1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a wireless mobile communication system having a connection-oriented radio link. More particularly the present invention relates to a method of configuring and registering an Internet Protocol (IP) address in a wireless mobile communication system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Provisioning of services with various Quality of Service (QoS) levels at about 100 Mbps to users is an active study area for a future-generation communication system called a 4th Generation (4G) communication system. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.16e is a major 4G communication system.
The IEEE 802.16e communication system is designed to interwork with a new future-generation Internet address system, Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6), for the purpose of providing services to users over IP.
IPv6 is an address system enhanced from IPv4. The IPv4 system has problems in address resources, mobility, and security due to the drastic increasing use of the Internet since the 1990's. IPv6 is defined in Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Request For Comments (RFC) 2460. IPv6 advantageously solves the problem of shortage of IP addresses because an IP address is extended from 32 bits to 128 bits. Also, IPv6 processes multimedia data in real time with reinforced security.
Nonetheless, IPv6 suffers from time delay involved in Duplicate Address Detection (DAD) for a Mobile Station (MS). In this context, IETF specifications associated with IPv6 will be described below.
IETF RFC 2462 “IPv6 Stateless Address Auto-configuration” provides that an MS shall perform an IP address auto-configuration procedure to establish an IP connection with a Base Station (BS).
For this purpose, the MS configures a 128-bit IP address using a 64-bit network prefix and a 64-bit extended unique identifier address.
The MS then performs DAD to determine whether the configured IP address is in use for another MS within the same subnet. Until completing the DAD process, the MS is not allowed to send or receive data to or from the BS.
IETF RFC 3775 “Mobility Support in IPv6” also regulates that the MS shall perform the DAD after completing the IP address configuration, thus prohibiting data transmission/reception to/from the BS for a predetermined time.
Accordingly, there is a need for an improved method of configuring and registering an IP address in a wireless communication system having a connection-oriented radio link.